This invention relates to a disposable wearing article for absorption and containment of bodily discharges.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 1997-173381A discloses a disposable diaper of open-type composed of a front waist region, a rear waist region and a crotch region extending between these waist regions. This diaper comprises a liquid-pervious topsheet facing the wearer's body, a liquid-impervious backsheet facing a garment the wearer puts on, a liquid-absorbent base panel interposed between these sheets and extending across the crotch region into the front and rear waist regions, a pair of liquid-absorbent side panels extending outside transversely opposite side edges of the base panel in a longitudinal direction and a pair of leak-barrier cuffs extending outside respective outer side edges of the side panels extending in the longitudinal direction. The side panels are interposed between the top- and backsheets.
With this diaper of prior art, the side panels slightly turn up in the vicinity of the outer side edges thereof as the leak-barrier cuffs rise on the topsheet. This diaper is effective to avoid the anxiety that bodily discharges might leak sideways from the crotch region even when a width of the base panel is dimensioned to be relatively small. This is because the presence of the side panels ensures the crotch region to maintain its desired absorbing capacity and, in addition, the leak-barrier cuffs form barriers against bodily discharges.
In the case of the diaper disclosed in the above-cited Publication, the leak-barrier cuffs are spaced outward from the respective outer side edges of side panels by a given dimension in the transverse direction. With such an arrangement, it can not be expected that the side panels rise in the same manner as the leak-barrier cuffs and form the barriers against bodily discharges even when the leak-barrier cuffs rise on the topsheet. While it is possible for this diaper to avoid the anxiety that bodily discharges might leak sideways from the crotch region, the amount of bodily discharges exceeding the absorbing capacity of the first and side panels and having reached the leak-barrier cuffs may flow along the opposed surfaces of the respective leak-barrier cuffs from the crotch region into the front and rear waist regions, i.e., spread in the longitudinal direction.